From: Zeeshan Ahmad <zeeshanahmad022019@gmail.com>
To: Sridhar Samudrala <sridhar.samudrala@intel.com>,
"David S . Miller" <davem@davemloft.net>,
Jakub Kicinski <kuba@kernel.org>, Paolo Abeni <pabeni@redhat.com>,
Eric Dumazet <edumazet@google.com>
Cc: netdev@vger.kernel.org, kernel-janitors@vger.kernel.org,
linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Simon Horman <horms@kernel.org>,
Zeeshan Ahmad <zeeshanahmad022019@gmail.com>
Subject: [PATCH net v2] net: core: failover: fix NULL pointer dereference in failover_slave_register()
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2026 12:57:37 +0500 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20260226075737.8948-1-zeeshanahmad022019@gmail.com> (raw)
Smatch warns that 'fops' is dereferenced at line 69 without a NULL check.
While other callbacks in this function properly check 'fops', the
rx_handler registration does not.
If failover_get_bymac() returns a valid failover_dev but a NULL fops,
the kernel will encounter a NULL pointer dereference when registering
the rx_handler.
Following the pattern of other failover callers, add a WARN_ON_ONCE()
to catch this misconfiguration. Abort the registration if fops is
missing to prevent an inconsistent state where a slave is logically
linked to a master but lacks a functional data path hook.
Fixes: 30c8bd5aa8b2 ("net: Introduce generic failover module")
Signed-off-by: Zeeshan Ahmad <zeeshanahmad022019@gmail.com>
---
v2:
- Target 'net' tree as this is a bug fix.
- Change logic from an early return (v1) to WARN_ON_ONCE() and abort
registration to prevent inconsistent state, as discussed with
Simon Horman.
- Update commit message with detailed impact analysis.
net/core/failover.c | 3 +++
1 file changed, 3 insertions(+)
diff --git a/net/core/failover.c b/net/core/failover.c
index 2a140b3ea669..1702bb1feca1 100644
--- a/net/core/failover.c
+++ b/net/core/failover.c
@@ -63,6 +63,9 @@ static int failover_slave_register(struct net_device *slave_dev)
fops->slave_pre_register(slave_dev, failover_dev))
goto done;
+ if (WARN_ON_ONCE(!fops))
+ goto done;
+
err = netdev_rx_handler_register(slave_dev, fops->slave_handle_frame,
failover_dev);
if (err) {
--
2.43.0
next reply other threads:[~2026-02-26 7:58 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 2+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2026-02-26 7:57 Zeeshan Ahmad [this message]
2026-02-26 8:02 ` [PATCH net v2] net: core: failover: fix NULL pointer dereference in failover_slave_register() Dan Carpenter
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